


perennial

by ewagan



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 08:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19884829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: But Haru knows about wishing and wanting, and how the world isn't hers to bend to her will. Her father always said the world was out there for the taking, but she knows it isn’t true.





	perennial

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written for the [P5 writer's zine, Take Your Time](https://twitter.com/p5writerszine). It's been a wonderful collaboration of writers and some really amazing work, so I encourage you to go see the other pieces that the participants have made.
> 
> I had the chance to collaborate with the lovely and most talented [nu](https://twitter.com/jeleefishing), who made wonderful illustrations for my piece. Please do go and check her work out!!
> 
> It's been a lovely experience to work on this project, and I hope you enjoy it.

But then it passed, as all things do.  
\- Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

* * *

The day her father dies, Haru watches it happen on her phone. She goes back to an empty house, and somehow, it feels emptier than before, like it was even less than before.

Instead of sleeping, she goes upstairs and uproots the cosmos flowers she planted for her father. She remembers saying they reminded him of her and her mother as she works, methodically tearing the plant into its components until it lies in pieces around her. Here, the leaves, the roots, the stem, the tender buds of flowers waiting to bloom, the flowers, the petals. There’s soil everywhere, all over her skirt and under her nails, smeared across her face as she sits there, in the middle of all the destruction she has wrought.

Then, she cries.

* * *

She still starts her days the same. The alarm rings and her eyes snap open, the soft pink of her canopy bed greeting her. Once, she imagined the stars there, her hand reaching for them, trying to grab hold of them and hold them in her hands.

But stars fall and Haru's learned to be much less fanciful, more grounded to the earth. She is now an orphan, an heiress. _How lucky, how unfortunate._ She hears all this from strangers, but no one has yet asked her how she feels about this, if she has wept for her father, if she knows what she will do next.

She doesn’t quite know herself, only that she has to get up and make it through the day again, all while knowing that her father really isn’t coming home this time.

Her morning routine is still a ritual to steady herself, familiar motions of brushing her teeth and washing her face, the barest touch of makeup. Breakfast, then school.

School is the same, but Haru's notes these days are less thorough than they used to be. She doesn't really care, because what does it matter, in the wake of everything?

The only thing that keeps her grounded now is the tiny rooftop garden she is cultivating. Even their trips into mementos and palaces leave her far more disoriented than grounded, reminding her of the frailty of human desire, how easily it can be distorted.

How fragile they all were as people, who only ever wanted simple things.

Wanting is never simple, she has learned. She buries her hands in soil and lets the dirt sink under her fingernails, until they no longer look like the hands of the heiress, no longer the hands of a prominent man's fiance.

She doesn't have to be either of that here.

* * *

Sometimes she wonders about her father, how is it such simple wants were so terribly distorted. She still remembers how he used to let her sit in his office while he worked, how there had always been a place for his princess. _I'm building an empire for my princess,_ he used to tell her when she asked him about his work.

Princesses were loved and adored, but they were also locked away in towers, alone and lonely. Princesses sealed alliances and served their kingdoms, but there was no kingdom for her to serve here. Princesses were also pieces on the board, something to use to create an advantage, or leverage.

 _You owe me,_ he said to her once. How she had hated it, how she had wavered between the way she loved him and wanted to respect him, the resentment that welled up deep inside her that screamed _I don't owe you anything!_

It is something he says to her time and again, to make her bend to him, to remind her that all he has done was for her. He says that but she knows that it is not true, that the company is for her father, all his complicated political games only make her a pawn for him to advance further.

The canopy bed, the grand mansion, private schools, fine dinners laced with political machinations, beautiful clothes and expensive jewelry. Sometimes they are gifts, sometimes they are weapons thrown at her, used to demand her submission, her compliance.

How she had hated it, how she had never wanted any of it.

If her father had ever stopped to ask her what she wanted, she would have said for him to get on his knees with her, the two of them with their hands buried in dirt while they tried to nurture some life from the earth, coax a seedling into bloom and fruit.

But Haru knows about wishing and wanting, and how the world isn't hers to bend to her will. Her father always said the world was out there for the taking, But she knows it isn’t true. Sometimes the things you want need to be freely given, willingly given. Sometimes the things you want the most are the hardest to have, and the things that will hurt you the most.

* * *

She fills her days with other things now— an axe and a feathered hat, the first tentative days of fluctuating friendships, learning new rules and mapping the boundaries of her freedom. There is no one to answer to, no one to tell her to be here or go there.

She has never felt more invincible than this, when she is no longer Haru but she is Noir, in defiance of all that she had been raised to be. Noir is the savage grace built from years of ballet and gymnastics, the cruelty she finds hard to stomach, the strength and the hardness she wished she had found in herself earlier.

But Noir is also her, just the parts of her she forgets about, has pushed down in trying to become the daughter her father had wanted her to be, the kind of wife she should have been. Noir is not a princess waiting for rescue; Noir is the knight Haru used to wish for.

The weight of the axe in her hands is just a reminder she can be more than everyone else thinks she is. She has seen the truth of human desire and faced it down, she has seen her own demons and fought them and won. She can save herself, be her own knight. She not so fragile nor so helpless she cannot do anything on her own.

Why then, is it so hard to tell people what she wants? Why is it so hard to speak the words inside her? She does not want the engagement with Sugimura, or the company that her father built. She doesn't know what to make of all these things people are asking her to decide, only that she's not the right person to ask at all.

* * *

In the warmth of Leblanc and Ren's dusty attic room, she tries to find her place amidst them. Sojiro makes her coffee and is always happy to answer her questions about beans and roasts, suggesting new blends for her to try. She admires _Sayuri_ and Yusuke tells her about it, about Madarame in halting sentences and she listens, reaching over to hold his hand because she understands, just like he understands her. She tells him the things she has thought but could never say, her voice wavering and unsteady as she talks, and he looks at her with a kind of compassion and empathy that makes her want to cry.

Her father had always told her that nothing in this world was free, that if you wanted it you'd have to get it yourself. Nothing is given for free, especially if you have nothing to give others. That was how the world worked— in gains and losses. _You have nothing to give_ , he said to her once. She hasn’t forgotten the way her eyes had burned, how hard it had been to keep her lips pressed together so she wouldn’t cry out.

What she wants is this: the quiet hours and pages turning as she and Makoto study together, Ann's laughter in her ears as they go in search of the best dessert cafes in Tokyo, Futaba's tentative smiles and sudden bursts of conversations, Ryuji's sincere awkwardness and thoughtfulness, the softness of Morgana's fur under her hands, Yusuke's oddly perceptive insight and odd hour texts, Ren's rare smiles and rarer words.

And maybe her hands are empty and maybe she has nothing to give, but with them she is gifted with things she cannot hold. Laughter, kindness, the warmth of solid friendships, and the knowledge they will come for her if she asks, or even if she doesn't.

Makoto held them in her fighter's hands and said her that her hands were for growing, for nurturing life. Kind hands, not hands made to destroy, to ruin. Meant to hold someone else's and remind them that they are loved, that they are cared for. They are empty hands, but they are giving, and giving the best they can.

And maybe, that was all they had to be.

* * *

Yusuke is the one she consults, when she starts a new garden. He gets his hands dirty with her as they turn over the soil and seed it, offers her his time freely even though she knows he is struggling to finish a piece to enter into an art competition. She doesn’t pretend to understand that problem, but he thanks her anyways. _It’s always good to try different things,_ he tells her. _New perspectives, new experiences are all important._

Her garden blooms, despite the coming winter, despite the fact she started it in the wrong season. But they grow and grow, clinging onto life and curling up the supports she set up. She moves them into the greenhouse where they can thrive, where the cold won't kill the tender green shoots, watches the leaves multiply and buds form. There is a satisfaction in it, to see the slight changes every day, the realisation that her hands still have something to give.

 _You can bloom too,_ Ren tells her when she sends him a picture of the first bloom. It makes her smile, just a little.

 _We can bloom,_ she whispers to her garden. The plants sway a little, as if in response.

* * *

In spring, she graduates with cherry blossom petals in her hair, a smile on her face. It’s warm and she has her face turned to the sun, the world before her and all that she wants in easy reach. Her hands are full with all the experiences she has lived—her grief and her joys, her strength and resilience, the warmth of someone else's hand in hers and a shoulder to lean on. She knows where she is going from here, and maybe her steps are small, but they are sure. She will get there.

She blooms.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated. <3


End file.
